Review: Smirnoff Coconut Vodka

Here’s a coconut monster from Smirnoff, one of the big producers of flavored vodkas.

Clear, unlike UV’s milky white oddity, Smirnoff again shows that when it comes to coconut, the natural companion is rum, not vodka. There’s something about these two that just doesn’t seem to play well together: The coconut just can’t be sweetened enough to cut through the vodka’s harshness.

Here, the bite of the vodka is distracting, a too-strong burn that plays poorly with the tropical fruit. (It’s a fruit, right?) The nose is spot-on, but on the palate, the coconut character is very short and indistinct, the finish leaving you not with a hint of the islands but rather a nod to Mother Russia. Strange.